A PREFATORY EPISTLE TO WILLIAM STEVENS, Esq.* MY DEAR FRIEND: terms: "My lord, I question whether you THE works of the late Bishop Horne are in know your vice-chancellor so well as you many hands, and will be in many more. No reader of any judgment can proceed far into them, without discovering that the author was a person of eminence for his learning, eloquence, and piety; with as much wit, and force of expression, as were consistent with a temper so much corrected and sweetened by devotion. To all those who are pleased and edified by his writings, some account of his life and conversation will be interesting. They will naturally wish to hear what passed between such a man and the world in which he lived. You and I, who knew him so well and loved him so much, may be suspected of partiality to his memory: but we have unexceptionable testimony to the greatness and importance of his character. While we were under the first impressions of our grief for the loss of him, a person of high distinction, who was intimate with him for many years, declared you and to me, that he verily believed him to have been the best man he ever knew. Soon after the late Earl of Guildford was made Chancellor of the University of Oxford, another great man, who was allowed to be an excellent judge of the weight and wit of conversation, recommended Dr. Horne, who was then vice-chancellor, to him in the following to *Treasurer of Queen Anne's Bounty, a man of singular excellence of character, and of sound learning, particularly in divinity, to the study of which he had very early addicted hfmself. He wrote some tracts on his favorite subject, one of which, "A Treatise on the Nature and Constitution of the Christian Church," has been re-published by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. He was cousin to Dr. Horne, and the closest friendship subsisted between them from their earliest years. He was no less intimate with Mr. Jones, the writer of this prefatory epistle, and wrote the life prefixed to Mr. Jones's works. Mr. Stevens died Feb. 7, 1807. ought. When you are next at Oxford, go and dine with him; and, when you have done this once, I need not ask you to do it again; you will find him the pleasantest man you ever met with." And so his lordship seemed to think (who was himself as pleasant a man as most in the kingdom) from the attention he paid to him ever after. I have heard it observed of him by another gentleman, who never was suspected of a want of judgment, that, if some friend had followed him about with a pen and ink, to note down his sayings and observations, they might have furnished out a collection like that which Mr. Boswell has given to the public; but frequently of a superior quality; because the subjects which fell in his way were occasionally of a higher nature, out which more improvement would arise to those that heard him and it is now much to be lamented, that so many of them have run to waste.† An allusion to the life of Dr. Johnson, reminds me how much it was wished, and by Dr. Horne in particular, who well knew and highly valued him, that Johnson would have directed the force of his understanding against that modern paper-building of philosophical infidelity, which is founded in pride and ignorance, and supported by sensuality and ridicule. A great personage was of opinion, that Johnson, so employed, would have borne them down with the weight of his language: and he is reported to have expressed the sentiment with singular felicity to a certain person, when the mischievous writings of Voltaire were brought into question: "I wish Johnson would mount his dray-horse, † A collection of his thoughts on various subjects is preserved in a manuscript, written with his own hand. and ride over some of those fellows." | passages of less dignity than will entitle them Against those fellows Dr. Horne employed to publication; yet, upon the whole, I am much of his time, and some of the most use- satisfied that a very useful selection might be ful of his talents: not mounted upon a dray-made out of them; and I will not despair horse to overbear them, but upon a light of making it myself at some future opportucourser to hunt them fairly down; with such nity.* easy arguments, and pleasant reflections, as From an early acquaintance with Greek render them completely absurd and ridi- and Latin authors, and the gift of a lively culous: an account of which will come be- imagination, he addicted himself to poetry; fore us in the proper place. His "Consider- and some of his productions have been deations on the Life and Death of St. John the servedly admired. But his studies were so Baptist," and his Sermon preached in St. soon turned from the treasures of classical Sepulchre's church, at London, for the bene- wit to the sources of Christian wisdom, that fit of a charity school for girls, on the "Fe- all his poetry is either upon sacred subjects, male Character," seem to me, above all the or upon a common subject applied to some rest of his compositions, to mark the peculiar sacred use; so that a pious reader will be temper of his mind, and the direction of his sure to gain something by every poetical thoughts. When I read his book on "John effort of his mind. And let me not omit the Baptist," I am persuaded, there was no another remarkable trait of his character. other man of his time whose fancy as a wri- You can be a witness with me, and so could ter was bright enough, and whose skill as an many others who were used to his company, interpreter was deep enough, and whose that few souls were ever more susceptible heart as a moralist was pure enough, to have than his of the charms of music, especially made him the author of that little work. the sacred music of the church: at the hearHis "Female Character" displays so much ing of which, his countenance was illumijudgment in discriminating, such gentle bene-nated, as if he had been favored with impresvolence of heart, and so much of the ele- sions beyond those of other men; as if gance of a polished understanding, in de- heavenly vision had been superadded to scribing and doing justice to the sex, that every sensible and virtuous woman, who shall read and consider that singular discourse, will bless his memory to the end of the world. While we speak of those writings which are known to the public, you and I cannot forget his readiness and excellence in writing letters; in which employment he always took delight from his earliest youth; and never failed to entertain or instruct his correspondents. His mind had so much to communicate, and his words were so natural and lively, that I rank some of his letters among the most valuable productions of the kind. 1 have therefore reason to rejoice that, amidst all my interruptions and removals, I have preserved more than a hundred of them; in reviewing of which I find many observations on the subjects of religion, learning, politics, manners, &c., which are equally instructive and entertaining; and would certainly be so esteemed if they were communicated to the world; at least, to the better part of it: for there were very few occurrences or transactions of any importance, either in the church, or the state, or the literary world, that escaped his observation; and in several of them he took an active part. But in familiar letters, not intended for the public eye, (as none of his ever were,) and suggested by the incidents of the time, some of them trivial and domestic, there will be of course many earthly devotion. He therefore accounted it a peculiar happiness of his life, that, from the age of twenty years, he was constantly gratified with the service of a choir; at Magdalen College, at Canterbury, and at Norwich. His lot was cast by Providence amidst the sweets of cloistered retirement, and the daily use of divine harmony; for the enjoyment of both which he was framed by nature, and formed by a religious education. Upon the whole, I never knew a person in whom those beautiful lines of Milton,† of which he was a great admirer, were more exactly verified: But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale; And bring all heav'n before my eyes. In the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1793, p. 688, I threw out a letter of bishop Horne, as a specimen both of the style and of the usual subjects of his epistolatory writings. It was the first that and I may leave every reader to judge whether that came to hand on opening a large parcel of them: letter be not curious and important. Compared with the present times, it seems prophetical. † In the "Il Penseroso." You who are so perfectly acquainted with and strong, was the answer of a wise and the discourse delivered at Canterbury, 1784, temperate man. He also, in his turn, not when the new organ was opened in the great foreseeing so much benefit to the Scriptures, church, may guess how refined his raptures as some others did, from Dr. Kennicott's plan were; by what he has there said, it may be for collating Hebrew manuscripts, and corknown what he felt. And I can assure you recting the Hebrew text, wrote against that farther, he was so earnest in this subject, that undertaking; expressing his objections and he took the pains to extract, in his own suspicions, and giving his name to the world, hand-writing, all the matter that is most without any fear or reserve. But so it came observable and useful in the five quarto vol- to pass, from the moderation and farther exumes of Sir John Hawkins upon music. I perience of both the parties, that, though their find among his papers this curious abridge- acquaintance began in hostility, they at length ment, which is made with critical taste and contracted a friendship for each other which discernment. brought on an interchange of every kind office. between them, and lasted to the end of their lives, and is now subsisting between their families. To all men of learning, who mean well to the cause of truth and piety while they are warmly opposing one another, may their example be a lasting admonition! But let not this observation be carried farther than it will go : But his greatest affection being to the science of divinity, he would there of consequence make the greatest improvements; and there the world will find themselves most obliged to him. No considerable progress, no improvement in any science, can be expected, unless it be beloved for its own sake. How this can happen in divinity, all men may not be able to see: but it is possible for the eye of the understanding to be as truly delighted with a sight of the divine wisdom in the great economy of redemption and revelation, as for the eye of the astronomer to take pleasure in observing the lights of heaven, or the naturalist in exploring and collecting, perhaps at the hazard of his life, the treasures of the natural creation. What I here say will be best understood by those who know what affection, what animation, is found in the first writers of the Christian church; with what delight they dwell upon the wonders of the Christian plan, and comment upon the peculiar wisdom of the word of God. To the best writers of the best ages he put himself to school very early, and profited by them so much, that I hope no injustice will be done to their memory, if I think he has in some respects improved upon his teachers. -Non ut Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni. In his intercourse with his own family, while the treasures of his mind afforded them some daily opportunities of improvement, the sweetness of his humor was to them a perennial fountain of entertainment. He had the rare and happy talent of disarming all the little vexatious incidents of life of their power to molest, by giving them some unexpected turn. And occurrences of a more serious nature, even some of a frightful aspect, were treated by him with the like ease and pleasantry; of which I could give some remarkable instances. Surely the life of such a man as this ought not to be forgotten! You and I, who saw and heard so much of it, shall, I trust, never recollect it without being the better for it: A man with such talents, and such a tem- and, if we can succeed in showing it so truly per, must have been generally beloved and to the world, that they also may be the better admired; which he was almost universally for it, we shall do them an acceptable service. the exceptions being so few, as would barely I have heard it said, and I was a little dissuffice to exempt him from that woe of the couraged by it, that Dr. Horne was a person Gospel, which is pronounced against the whose life was not productive of events confavorites of the world. But his undisguised siderable enough to furnish matter for a hisattachment to the doctrines of the Church of tory. But they who judge thus, have taken England, which are still, and, we hope, ever but a superficial view of human life, and do will be, of the old fashion, would necessarily not rightly measure the importance of the expose him to the unmannerly censures of different events which happen to different some, and the frigid commendations of others, sorts of men. Dr. Horne, I must allow, was which are sometimes of worse effect than no circumnavigator; he neither sailed with open scandal. But he never appeared to be Drake, Anson, nor Cooke; but he was a man hurt by anything of this sort that happened whose mind surveyed the intellectual world, to him. An anonymous pamphlet, which the and brought home from thence many excelpublic gave to the late Dr. Kennicott, attack-lent observations for the benefit of his native ed him very severely; and soon received an country. He was no military commander; answer from him, which, though very close he took no cities; he conquered no countries; |